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Oh boy, this is kinda high level for me. I mean, conceptually I can understand what you're saying but it's not a vantage point I've ever been to experientally or associate with the experience I was talking about. Its what I imagine might be related to the kind of ego death that results from psychedelics or spiritual work, unless you see that as indistinct from the jungian kind?Quote:
Originally Posted by whodat
Yeah that makes sense, if you have not experienced that concept, or associate it with anything you are talking about then I could see it wouldn't entirely be appropriate to bring up. What is it that you are talking about in more detail, with out giving to many details if you don't want?Quote:
Originally Posted by ashlesha
I just felt it was important to figure out what you and I think about when we talk about ego death.
This sounds like more a conventional take on OP: a kinda lords prayer sort of thing> God grant me the patience to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can change, and wisdom to know the difference.Quote:
Its what I imagine might be related to the kind of ego death that results from psychedelics or spiritual work, unless you see that as indistinct from the jungian kind?
As far as spiritual work, psychedelics and Jung, I absolutely do think he is discussing something akin to real ego death, death of the pre-concieved and contrived *little me*. Except I think in reality its more of a dissolution.
The Jung quote is saying that somewhere deep inside you, you choose, or secretly wanted, the situation you could not escape from. This is a rule you will notice play out in other's when you recognize it in yourself.
Lot's of times, if you took a bird's eye view of your circumstances, including how things played out over time, you will notice that your free-will had little by little, or maybe in whole blocks, brought you to your own circumstances where you are confronted with impossible, painful, and potentially debilitating outcomes. In a way, forces inside yourself that you cannot always be fully aware of (which is why Jung calls it un-conscious - not awareness) invited the circumstances in your life to make yourself come against your own troubles. You victimized yourself, and in that you have the opportunities to subscribe to any lessons the unconscious forces are asking of you.
These situations, be it on the outside, for example sabotaging your job, or a relationship, or inner ones that your mind created for itself, or even the random unfortunate circumstances that you happen to find yourself inside, are meant to crush you utterly. This is why they feel so "dark night". And these dark nights can last days, weeks, months and years, there are no templates.
So your mind has this resolution to make: it knows its not going to die, and it knows it cannot continue onwards as is, so the only thing it must do is weather through the storms and the only way to do that is to surrender. And you have to watch out that this surrender is not a kinda going comatose in order to weather the storm, like falling in watching television, or drinking, or other methods of avoiding the unavoidable truths in your life at that time.
The surrender Jung is saying is to fall into Selfhood. tbh I can't be entirely certain what Jung meant by the Self. There are so many explanations for this term the Self, and its really a very popular new age phrase, but I don;t think that diminishes it in anyway if it means what I think it means.
you can think of self as all the functions, whether valued or conscious or not. so when you put yourself in a difficult situation, the idea is you landed yourself there on the basis of information you processed on the level of the self, if not the ego. in some sense the self "wanted" the consequence of those choices, inasmuch as the whole person acted this way in the face of that information and not that. in other words, ignorance is no excuse, and unconscious forces guided you, on behalf of the self, and people call it "fate" because they think its something outside them, but its in fact the self and not the world that acted so as to produce the outcome before you in any case. a lot of times this is analogized as Ne because it has to do with what possibilities are taken up and which are passed by, so victim has to do when possibilities are handled in the realm of the unconscious. I think this is why conscious Ne valuers don't really think of themselves as victims because they don't view the possibilities as something imposed by the outside world so much as consciously attend to them. in any case the self gets you into scenarios and also has within in it the capacity to get you out of such scenarios and its the egos relation to the self in incorporating the contents of the unconscious in order to do that that constitutes the process of transformation. in symbols of transformation jung talks about various forms of death and rebirth as subset of transformation, I think "ego death" of the kind we're talking about here belongs in that subset
Ego death is probably a bad word for whatever the phenomenon itself is. If your ego were dead, how exactly would you make this thread, if ego is your everyday personality in waking state? In spite of all the spiritual practices I've read of many people, they still seem like the same human beings they always were. This all depends, of course, on how we define ego. But there do seem to be certain indestructible mannerisms that make up a person that don't really change in spite of all the spiritual experiences they have.Quote:
Originally Posted by ashlesha
"Dark night of the soul" sounds better, because it makes one think of a very trying experience that often produces big changes in how we live our lives -- but not the death of one's psychological or spiritual self.
It comes back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aramas
And until you have possessed
dying and rebirth,
you are but a sullen guest
on the gloomy earth.
— Goethe
I told you Jung is just a bad Faust fanfiction. And, OK, Jung is pretty cool, so I won't be too harsh on him, but I get sick of the bandwagon here to make Jung mean whatever you want him to mean by being obscure.
Also, I think you'd seem like the same person you always were after it happened, and maybe also be the same person, and that'd be one of the perks. Who wants to have been making horrid mistakes their entire life up until that point? If you get God to do something for you I think that'd be a common request. Change my paaaaaast pleeeeeease... Also, the mannerisms people pick are the ones that happen not to change. If they did change and something else didn't, you'd pick that, but you don't, because they didn't.
What do you mean? I'm having trouble parsing this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pallas Athena
I did change, but not in directions I could have plotted otherwise. I think any outward signs are pretty subtle and it would be a tall order to expect anybody else to have noticed. And I have made horrid mistakes all my life, lol.
It's like that weird Buddhist experiment. You can change basically anything about yourself, so none of those things define you, but there are too many things to be able to change everything in practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by ashlesha
Yeah, I know all about this. About nine years ago or so I had a complete ego-death/dark night of the soul experience. I explained this on the forum before, but I'll talk about it again.
It is hard to put into words just how horrible this feeling is. It's intense as fuck. You feel like you are dying in a very horrible way. I thought I was losing my mind and I screamed at my mom to take me to a psychiatrist but she just looked at me weird. I screamed that I was going crazy, and it was pure emotional anguish and hell. Eventually my mom got tired of me and sent me to stay at my grandma's for awhile.
I was crazy at my grandmas, thinking of all this horrible grimdark and unfair shit I experienced in my real world... I saw nothing but demons and death. I just wanted to die. I didn't know what was happening... I was losing it. Then suddenly out of the blue I was talking to my nana and a wave of intense, unexpected peace went through me. I saw the physical/corporeal form of my grandma for the first time, like I had no mental projections about her whatsoever, I saw 'her' for the very first time. And I felt completely one with God. I literally felt how we were all connected, and that duality is an illusion. I felt ascended into a literal higher plane of existence. I even wanted to go to church. I spoke to others softly and wisely for awhile. And I approached others and said hello whereas before I would be too afraid to do that.
When the moment 'clicked' and my ego died and I was 'pure good'; it was potent as fuck. I can't describe it in words that well... you just have to go through with it yourself and many others have I see. :love:
You're not a victim anymore, but you're not a hero either. There is no flair or frosting of bliss. You are you- and that is enough, and it is so peaceful and wonderful.
I had changed. Not because other people wanted me to, or because I was forced or pressured into something. But because it was my time.
Also after the horrible nightmare I saw the most beautiful rainbow colors in my head. (also this was the entirety of Buffy season 7 in a nutshell really, it was so horrible and depressing and dark for many, many months - and then bam, Willow empowered all the potential slayers at once with a huge equanimity spell.)
My Egoless state didn't last that long- maybe a few hours, because I do think you need some sort of ego to function in society. And eventually I got my own personal ego back and things weren't as worse as they were before- but they now were more 'gray' and neutral/boring/blah.
The best spiritual advice anybody can give you is; be brave and ride the wave of intense str8 grimdarkiness and on the other side there is peace/love and gay rainbows. But yeah you have to be tough enough to not let your ego scare you back into a lower realm of thinking- you have to ride with the uncertainty. That is the most important lesson- we all avoid mental pain too much when we should instead let it cut us deeper. The only way out is through/you cannot deny the Shadow to get to the light. =D
Nah, it's much more interesting than that. As human beings we rarely have complete information, and we often have to reconsider old information in the light of something newly discovered -- this is where Ne excels. It also allows you to see the "forest" where other types would only see the trees.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pallas Athena
You just said possibility is the state of lacking information. If I know a hurricane will hit my house in a couple of days, I don't lack information. If I do something to leave my house, that isn't a possibility either, because I'm actually doing something. If I want to "discover" what happens when a hurricane hits my house, I would have to just sit around and not leave my house. It is better to make decisions than make discoveries and reconsider everything. When I keep saying "if" in these sentences, it means I'm not actually doing these things, and a hurricane won't hit my house in a couple of days. This whole dialogue isn't even relevant to what'd happen in any of those situations, since it's just pointing out how irrelevant "possibilities" are to anything. At least Aushra made Ne things like how to make and use a tool, or how to get someone to do something for you, not definitionally things that never actually happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by thehotelambush
But what if you think you know something is going to happen but it actually isn't? If you hope to have some self-awareness and self-corrective capacity in that regard you will have to use Ne. We all know the example of the paranoid schizophrenic who wears a tinfoil hat and only eats white foods because he thinks the government is targeting him personally...that's what Ni "knowingness" looks like when it isn't tempered with Ne.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pallas Athena
From the sounds of it it sounds like "ego death" is when we become one of those defeated washed up old people who obsess over god or some intangible idea cuz they gave up trying to get anywhere in the actual world. No thanks.
Also for anybody who played Bioshock Infinite, it sounds like that game's story revolved around the protagonist (Booker) fighting against a version of himself who went through ego death. (Comstock) Just a neat thought for anybody who knows the story of that game.
You mentioned that you don't want advice coming from the standpoint of anything to do with psychedelics, but I think that the closest I've come to understanding the idea of ego death have been experiences on shrooms, which I really think shouldn't be dismissed. Being able to reach those states of consciousness through substances feels like more like you're extending your awareness rather than just augmenting it.
Your consciousness and understanding expands to a point where you can understand everyone's choices and point of view and you can empathize to a point where you understand how it feels to be them. And at the same time you are able to wholly accept and be grateful for everyone's part and experience together as well as all the individual choices you've made. The borders of your body seem to melt and your individuality becomes unimportant.
This is coming from someone who's an enneagram 4 and a visual artist, by the way - so individuality is where my core values are naturally centered. A lot of people are talking about the intense fear involved when ego death is psychologically driven - as far as I can tell I've never had that experience, though, even when it involves this complete loss of identity. It's not a loss, it's more a reconfiguration, a widening of perspective. I was able to see and understand everyone's individual perspective and accept them as facets on a single, whole, detailed crystal of existence and consciousness. I was there too, in the mix, but I felt safe rather than full of fear, with the understanding that everyone else exists together as a whole, pulsing, integrated spirit.
A close friend of mine has also experienced "ego death" after a really intense panic attack and her description of the experience is very similar. We've concluded that whether it is through using substances or something psychological triggers it, these are states in the mind that are just dormant but naturally exist behind our individual, day-to-day ego driven functions. And it's not something to be scared about.
^ I feel like I exist in that space you describe of seeing other's points of view. whats funny is I have these limited moments of what I think are enlightenment where I think the world is glowing and I feel like its full of love and when I described it to ESE she was like oh yeah I feel like that all the time, whereas I've had it happen maybe 5 times in my life max. I think it may have to do with different types realizing the subconscious program of other types, or maybe thats all made up but it wouldnt surprise me if I was living the headspace someone else was desperately trying to get into and someone else lives in the space Im desperately trying to get into etc etc
If I put a type label on my growth it would probably be like...NT strong functions. Or the ability to mediate some of my natural inclinations and check myself. Higher independence, less reactivity. Not objectivity per se, but a better understanding of how to lean into it. It's weird trying to put it into words.
I'm there too these days, ashlesha. I know what it is you are trying to say, I think?
Then just pick the right answer next time instead of the wrong one. Also, I don't know any paranoid schizophrenics with tinfoil hats, or really any paranoid schizophrenics at all. I've seen people walking and standing around who seem crazy enough I'd be scared but I don't know them at all and have no idea what's going on inside their heads to try to make it into some socіonіcs thing. Generally I just assume crazy = stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by thehotelambush
You're supposed to become a really successful, worldly, wise old person who has gotten everything out of life you can, then obsess over intangible ideas because you've actually run out of things to do in the world and are wealthy and respected already. And I think that's simplistic too but this is why I hate "spiritual not religious." You need a cultural context to have experiences in (religion) before you try to make things personal (spirituality.) Otherwise you're just some crazy and stupid person who can't get anywhere in life. But then we already knew psychologists like Jung and Maslow tend to be sources for weird cults (haven't bothered trying to be super sure about their intentions.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy
Also, ego death makes me think of the snake scene in Harry Potter more than what you said. Or really any time someone in some movie or book randomly has powers/a burst of strength/whatever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3ygiGa5vFw
@ashlesha: my encounter with what you describe led me to depression, some time ago. Maybe some people escape that 'trap' and it leads them to something else. From how far i understand this.
I was just trying to understand something real that happened by making this thread, spiritual or not.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pallas Athena
I'd like to be more spiritual without having to arbitrarily pick a religion though. And I do think it's like wanting to have my cake and eat it too. Any particular religious path you suggest?
Back to the root idea, away with all the chatter: Why is it called death when it's supposed to be positive and regenerating? You can't just trick — or whatever — the ego/identity and it disappears. It only develops not to stand in the way anymore. It's to resolve the you against you conflict, if it dies so will you. Coexistence, dependence. So I have a problem with the terminology and "ego as bad and unwanted -> eliminate!". Ego death is an oxymoron in fact. You can tell that it's not the best thing to do, it has... the word moron in it :lol:
And generally: I have something against the idea of letting a part of you die (instead of integrating). That's not possible and fairly an illusion made to make people feel good that they got rid of something. That would be the easy and fake soothing way. But not how the spiritual mind works. It's no coincidence this concept was invented by men and men only. Ever noticed? Of course it has an element of destruction in it instead of re-creation and/or rebirth. To me it's like this: With proper care and acceptance, the embracing mindset, the dragon still sleeps in the basement. This time it's just laying eggs of gold instead of scorching your diddly darn house and clawing your eyes out :content: I hereby proclaim this concept to be called: Neo-conception of the ego!
I totally get where people are coming from with the "death is the wrong word for it" thing. But I don't care about accurate labeling that much, just me :shrug:
I'm guessing the term better describes the "one with the universe" sort of ego death that some people have talked about because it sounds like the ego does really entirely fall away temporarily in those instances, but I wouldn't know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ashlesha
I could be wrong, but I think I know what you mean. I just had a discussion with my daughter because she is excelling in the sciences and may be advance placed. She told me that she is logical like me and I told her that she is more logical than I was at her age. She is much more apt to point out logical fallacies and things that do not make sense than I was, although my passion for science was greater. She amazes me really. I was more artistic and creative in thinking and was in accelerated art prior to accelerated math and science. The logical aspect, I told her, came later as I learned more about the world and learned critical thinking, which helped me overcome parts of myself that were only remedied through objectivity and incorporating that into who I am.
Try them all or none. You do not have to be religious to benefit from the experience, as you already know, since you are benefiting. No one can take that away from you. As you can see in this thread some people have had the experience and it led them to different religions. I was a Christian by birth and later by choice but I investigated several religions.Quote:
Originally Posted by ashlesha
After my experience I decided once and for all that Christianity (in most forms) was not for me (much to my mother's horror but she has accepted it now). The Tao Te Ching was my new guidebook but I can still quote bible verses and understand them in my new context. Both books can be sources of inspiration and reminders. So is Richard Bach's "Illusions". "Tao Te Ching" and "Illusions" express philosophies that I believe are closest to my own "revelations" during my dark night.
The state is temporary but the changes can be profound and lasting. It is up to you how you use the experience to propel yourself forward in life. If you do not feel inclined to follow a specific religion it does not diminish your experience or limit your growth. I can't believe anyone who has had such a profound experience would tell you otherwise regardless of what they got from it.Quote:
Ego death is the process of losing oneself to find oneself.
The Ego death dismantles everything that is trivial and unimportant in life. Experiencing reality outside of the filter of being human puts things into perspective from a unique vantage point.
Ego death is the experience of a state of being that is free of the attachments used to form the personal identity filters that interpret your day to day experiences. The experience of Ego loss gives you a glimpse at how significant and/or insignificant these attachments are and how they can affect your life. The actual experience sometimes can be terrifying, but retrospective examination of it can increase your understanding of who you are and what you value in this existence.
Depending on your mental fortitude, not everyone can positively benefit from an ego-loss experience. It can be very intense and potentially too difficult for some people to handle with any degree of comfort. Psychedelic Ego-loss can be liberating as long as you don’t get carried away and lose your ability to pull it together after the Trip. In this existence, a healthy balance of boundaries is good, and these Entheogens can change your concepts of limitation for the best ….or the worst. Some people check out of this reality and choose to escape it by using psychedelics frequently. One must always bring their experiences back to the ‘Here and Now’ and make what was learned applicable to their lives in this physical world.
Perspective and paradigm shifts are often accompanied with Ego loss. Although you may feel inspired to do so, allow your experience to sink in and process before making any radical changes in your life. Use the experience as a resource to weigh the pros and cons of your new path and perspective. Do not make rash decisions immediately after the experience of Ego death.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/...-an-ego-death/
FTR, I also had the experience of being "born again" in spirit when I was about 19 years old. It was also very profound but for me it was a small step on my path. Not the destination. That experience has a greater context for me now. My dark night happened years later and was traumatic. Being "born again" was different. I can't even explain it but both had huge impacts on my life.
I got a whole new perspective of that verse after my dark night. The meaning was no longer limited by one religion. I do not limit myself to religion. You have to follow your own path regardless. If it is a specific religion then synchronicity will lead you to it. Good luck on your path.Quote:
Yeshua answered and said to him: "Timeless truth I am telling you: "If a person is not born from water and The Spirit, it is impossible that he shall enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born from flesh is flesh, and that which is born from The Spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised that I said to you that all of you must be born again. The Spirit* breathes where he will, and you hear his voice, but you do not know from where he comes and where he goes; thus is everyone who is born from The Spirit."
Quote:
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
That was a good fuckin game. I sat down to play it at like 10 at night and played until noon the next day until I beat it. I wouldn't even call that a game. It was like an interactive movie with an interweaved storyline with plot twist after plot twist and an ending that put it all together and made it all worth it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy
There is no creation without destruction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chae
It's not a trick. In Islam ego death is known as fana' or annihilation, but it's the death of the lower self (the ego or nafs) for the higher self (the spirit or ruh). People use different metaphors to talk about it, like rebirth. The ego isn't all bad, but it's a tool meant to serve your higher self, much like your dragon. Most people are ruled by their ego instead so their spirit never truly lives.Quote:
You can't just trick — or whatever — the ego/identity and it disappears. It only develops not to stand in the way anymore. It's to resolve the you against you conflict, if it dies so will you. Coexistence, dependence. So I have a problem with the terminology and "ego as bad and unwanted -> eliminate!".
And generally: I have something against the idea of letting a part of you die (instead of integrating). That's not possible and fairly an illusion made to make people feel good that they got rid of something. That would be the easy and fake soothing way. But not how the spiritual mind works. It's no coincidence this concept was invented by men and men only. Ever noticed? Of course it has an element of destruction in it instead of re-creation and/or rebirth. To me it's like this: With proper care and acceptance, the embracing mindset, the dragon still sleeps in the basement. This time it's just laying eggs of gold instead of scorching your diddly darn house and clawing your eyes out I hereby proclaim this concept to be called: Neo-conception of the ego!
Such is from ego point of view. :) There is unconscious where life is not lesser, it's just unseen to ego. That unconscious plays with ego which thinks it's his decisions, while all are the decicions of the whole Self. Ego is only one of levels or parts if that Self.Quote:
Originally Posted by thehotelambush
People are never ruled by their ego only. It's an illusion.
What part of the post did you not understand?Quote:
Originally Posted by thehotelambush
I think the idea is that the concept of death isn't an absolute negative because like the fire that burns the forest down so that more might grow in the future, involution is itself a healthy and desirable process. thus at some point there is a tension between "death" and "health"--semantically they would seem to be opposed, but in reality death is just another link in the chain of bodily health (the greater body politic). inasmuch as that chain cannot be unbroken every individual lives on through their legacy in time, whether it makes the history books or not, in that sense death is more of a primal fear than a reality. thus you get statements like Churchill's "only thing to fear is fear itself" in Se fashion he's pointing out how fear of bodily death will keep you from doing what you should do, but this applies no less to the higher realms of thought and not just immediate forms of physical courage. that fear is precisely what will result in less of an impact, either in time (legacy) or space, because you're in essence trying to preserve something that cannot be preserved anyway at the expense of all future potential. fear of "death" on the level of ego is often what stops visionaries and artists from putting themselves out there and risking rejection, but in actually shrinks their existence not preserves it through time
I understood, I was answering your question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chae